Every commune has a council, consisting of 48 members in the bend towns, of 36 or 24 in the smaller towns, and of 18 in villages which do not contain more than 1000 inhabitants. The members of the council are taken in equal proportions from two classes, nobles and n citizens or farmers. The councils deliberate upon the affairs of their respective communes, and make out, in August every yenr, an estimate in which are specified the probable expenditure of the following year and the means for meeting it, including any local taxes required. This estimate is forwarded to the governor of the province, who examines it, and then forwards it to Rome, where it is approved or modified. The estimate is then returned to the commune and published, upon which it becomes law, and no magistrate can depart from its provisions. The communal council appoints yearly, by a majority of votes, the local magistrates, all the officers and other servants of the commune, the secretary, the communal attorney, the receiver, the surgeon and apothecary (who for a fixed salary is obliged to attend the poor inhabitants gratis), the schoolmaster, the local police, &c. The councils are always presided over by the gonfaloniere or by the governor in the bead town of a district. This system of municipal administration is more favourable to the liberties of the people than is commonly supposed. The communal councils are in fact more in dependent of the central authority than those of France. The common lands were sold by Pius VII. in order to supply the urgent wants and exactions of the French military. The ordinary revenue of the communes is now derived from taxes levied upon provisions coming to market, like the French octroi ; and the extraordinary deficiency is made up by a capitation tax and a tax upon cattle. The expenditure consists of administrative, judicial, and police salaries, the repairs of the roads, public buildings, fountains, tee., the emolu menta of the communal eurgeon and apothecary, schoolmaster, and preacher who comes during Lent and Advent to deliver sermons adapted to those epochs. In the larger towns there are mistresses, called Maestro Pie, paid by the commune for the elementary teaching of girls. There is however no general system of elementary instruction, aud the proportion of illiterate people in the Papal States is much greater than in Lombardy.
The universities are those of Rome, Bologna, Perugia, Ferrara, and Macerate. There are also numerous colleges or gymnasia in Rome and the chief towns of provinces. Females or the higher classes are chiefly educated in convents.
With regard to the central government it is an elective monarchy. The Popo for the time being is the absolute sovereign of the state ; he is assisted by a council of ministers and a council of state, over each of which the cardinal secretary of state presides. Laymen are rip pointed members of each of these councils. , The governor of Rome is under the authority of the secretary of state, but is vested with great discretionary powers as to the police of the capital and its territory. The congregation or,board called Sacra Consults,' consisting of cardi nals and prelates, superintends the administration of the provinces, and is also a court of appeal for criminal matters. The territory of the state is divided into three military divisions, with an inspector at the head of each; the headquarters are Rome, Ancona, and Bologna.
The army consisted of 17,365 men in 1854, including 5149 police gendarmerie and 1778 custom-house guards. Many of the soldiers in the service of the Pope are Swiss.
The judicial department consists of a judge, called for civil matters in the head town of every province ; two courts of appeal, one at Rome and the other at Bologna; and a supreme court, called La which sits at Rome. The ecclesiastical courts in each diocese judge of suits between clerical persons, and also betweenlaymen who agree to tring their disputes before these courts. For criminal matters, there is a court in every province, presided over by the delegate ; and two courts of appeal, one at Rome and the other at Bologna. The great evils of the system are frequency of imprisonment on suspicion, and delay of triaL The penalties are imprisonment and hard labour either for life or for a term of years. Capital executions are resorted to only in very aggravated cases. Tribunals of commerce are established at Rome, Bologna, Ancona, and some other of the principal towns.
The revenue, according to the budget for 1354, amounted to 11,432,450 Roman crowns (worth 4s. 6d. each); the expenditure in the same year was estimated at 13,032,046 crowns. The interest of the debt, and other charges connected with it, amounted in 1851 to 4,300,000 crowns. The principal sources of the revenue are direct taxes, which amount to 2,300,000 crowns; customs duties ; salt and tobacco monopolies, which bring in above 5,000,000 crowns; stamps and registry duty; post-office; and the lottery.
Agriculture, which is in a backward state, is the chief occupation of the population. A great extent of land is used for pasture. The exports are—cattle, wool, cheese, lambskins, tallow, hemp, oil, some silk, vitriol, sulphur, pozzolana, potash, and cream of tartar. The salt-pans of Cervia and Comacchio, near the Adriatic coast, supply most of the salt for the consumption of the country. Vitriol is found near Viterbo ; alum at La Tolfa, near Civita-Vecchia ; sulphur near Rituini; and coal near Pesaro, and at Sogliano, near Forli. Wood and charcoal are the only fuel used.
The manufactures of the Papal State are of more importance than is generally supposed. One of the principal and oldest branches is that of woollen cloths, which are made in various towns of the state, and chiefly supply the internal consumption, especially of common or coarse cloth. The silk manufacture is carried on at Rome and Bologna. Tanneries are established chiefly at Ancona, Bologna, Pesaro, and Sinigaglia. Other industrial products are—paper, bats, soap, glass; and some cotton goods are manufactured at Rome. There are iron smelting furnaces at Bracciano, Canino, and Cones, and iron-works in various other places. Plate-glass is made at Poggio Mirteto. Cables and ropes are made in the northern provinces, and exported to Greece and tho Ionian Islands. Other manufactures ara — wax-candles, catgut, liquorice, and refined sugar. The exports in 1852 were valued at 10,474,012 ecudi, including the articles above named, and works of art and antiquity, sculptures, paintings, medals, mosaic, &c. The imports in the same year amounted to 10,218,426 scudi : they consist chiefly of tobacco, raisins and other dried fruit, colonial produce, salt fish, iron, lead, besides manufactures of fine cloth, silks, cottons, hardware, and articles of luxury from France and England.